I've been working on this one for a while. It's a full fledged reoorganization of Division One football as we know it. It's based heavily on FiniteMan's idea of restructuring the divisions based on attendance, but I've added in some other factors, including football spending and scholarship requirements and etc. etc.

This is the first part of four, however, those four parts will each be relativley shorter than this first one. The NCAA will be divided into four seperate divisions:

Another year of bowls, another year of disappointment for college football fans. Another team with a perfect record ends up on the outside looking in. This year's victim has one of the best rap sheets in college football: An undefeated season, 3 victories over top 25 competition, and a powerhouse win over what was the best team in the nation a mere week before. So how can we remedy our college football woes? Well, the obvious answer is a playoff. Just about every collegiate sport has a playoff of some sort, some inclusive and some not so inclusive. The question then lies, what kind of playoff is best bred for college football?

I would answer that question by saying that what college football needs is a complete, head-to-toe, makeover. A complete restructuring so that both the Haves and Have Not’s so that both sides can field playoff-level teams. Therefore, what we need is not just your average playoff system. We need a playoff system specially built for the gargantuan beast that is modern college football. I propose two new amendments that will define this restructuring. First, all teams with less than 25,000 attendances for two years out of a three year period should be demoted. Second, Teams that spend 8.0 Million plus on football over the same period shall be exempt from exclusion. Requiring they continue pumping money into their college sports program, the schools will be allowed to continue fielding FBS teams. This allows some of the smaller private schools to keep a FCS football program. You’ll notice that these schools are either up-and coming or small privates. Three Schools can dodge the attendance cut: Duke, Temple and Southern Methodist.

Glossary:A) The Big EastB) The Big TenC) The PAC TenD) The Big TwelveE) IndependentsF) The SECG) The ACCH) The MWCI) The Atlantic NineJ) The Playoff System

Football Bowl Subdivision:The Big East Public Division:LouisvilleCincinnatiSouth FloridaMemphisTempleConnecticutPittsburghWest Virginia

First, I’m making a couple of changes to the Big East. We’ll start off with the league losing Rutgers to the Big Ten, a situation I discussed more in-depth on the NCAAbbs. While I prefer Delaware to Temple (who barely squeaked into FCS due to the 8M dollar principle) in the short term, I’ll admit Temple, which already has a 50k+ stadium and is much closer to 1-A than Delaware, is a better addition. Plus, playing in a northern, BCS league instead of the Midwestern MAC, should bump Temple up to around the 25,000 attendance mark. Stability in the now, with a eight-game conference schedule, is much preferred than trying to make a go of it with 8 teams and no presence in the major northeastern markets. Personally, I still think Delaware will be a stronger program in five or ten years.

For those not in the know, what you see here is a gavitt-style league. It’s a league with two 9-team divisions, where each division represents a sort-of mini conference. The TV deal would be split right down the middle; when it comes time to redistribute NCAA tournament money would be given to the appropriate division. As in, the ‘one’ conference would count as two for NCAA redistribution purposes.

The Big Ten adds Rutgers. Rutgers is the home team in one of the largest markets – albeit one which it doesn’t control. The school is the state flagship of New Jersey, and contains the right profile for a Big Ten School; large market with little Big Ten influence, 1st Tier USN&W report, 40k + Student body. This makes the Big Ten the number one conference in the Northeast.

Notice I didn’t choose Notre Dame here. For the sake of this college football playoff, I decide that it’s just as well if the Irish maintain both independence and their massively ridiculous TV contract if they so desire. With the freedom of Independence and an automatic berth every time they get ten wins, Notre Dame really doesn’t need a football conference, even one as prestigious as the Big Ten. Notre Dame is another case of fan base and location overcoming actual team quality. But you can’t hate on a school for being successful, right?

The Big Ten’s eleven member structure is a kink in the system. It allows the conference an often unwarranted second chance at a now extinct BCS Bowl Berth, lead to several years with dual conference champions, and also allowed top Big Ten teams to avoid playing other top Big Ten teams, thus leading the Big Ten to be vastly overrated (I’m looking at you, Ohio State). At the very least, with 12 teams, we’ll know who won the Big Ten last year. It simply MUST be fixed.

Hawaii will make a great long term addition to the independent. A state flagship with 40k+ attendance playing independent football? That’s unheard of. Sky High travel costs make this a likely eventual reality for the Warriors anyway. As for reasons stated above, Notre Dame remains an Independent. I’m not sure how long USM can remain at Division FBS, though.

Perhaps no conferences undergo as dramatic changes as the MWC does. We’ll start with the basics. First, Boise State and Fresno State are obvious choices from the now extinct WAC. Texas at El Paso is here because it’s one of the few teams left that is certain to meet attendance requirements over the next five years. On behalf of conference politics, Southern Methodist (despite sub 20k attendance) is given a conference home. Texas at El Paso and Texas Christian would feel appreciative if another school from Texas was added. I’m sure TCU would lobby pretty hard for their Christian Brothers to maintain FBS status. Of course, none of this will matter if SMU doesn’t start playing better football under June Jones. 1-11? You got to be kidding me.

I’m going to wait a few years before I pass judgment on Jones, though. Given time, the school’s allotment of resources and the school’s willingness to make the occasional academic concession [this is one of the things that allowed Jones to shine in Hawaii], I think SMU will eventually become one of C-USA’s better teams. At which time, they will start filling the stands up a little more.

Montana was considered heavily here [and they probably would out-draw SMU], however, SMU stands apart in five separate factors. 1) SMU already plays in a 30+k stadium, 2) SMU has a huge endowment and a gratuitous booster club [over 11M dollar football spending in 05-06], 3) Texas at El Paso and Texas Christian will feel a lot more comfortable with another Texas team 4) SMU has markedly better academics and 5) SMU allows for geographically even travel partners.

Notice, unlike Lash, I decided that the MWC would be better off in 10/12 format. Why 10/12? Its travel efficient and that after all is a reason we have a MWC in the first place. For Football, ten members gives us the following travel partners:Fresno State-San Diego StateTCU-Southern MethodistUtah-Brigham YoungBoise State-Air ForceNew Mexico-Texas at El Paso

As a general rule, basketball conferences should be larger than football conferences [like my Gavitt Plan conferences] and twelve will allow us to split the basketball teams into two divisions, condensing the strained distances into more manageable forms. The two non-football teams [who would likely prefer to stay due to the extra coverage received by parking your sports in a FCS conference] allow the MWC to keep its two major markets somewhat intact: UNLV in Las Vegas and Colorado State in Denver/Colorado Springs.

This conference is similar to one ripped out of the article I wrote for bleacher report, however, it is different in one distinct way: It remains a Gavitt-Style league; Two independent divisions of eight or nine teams each. We start in a post-apocalyptical Atlantic Ten. The downtrodden conference has lost its perhaps two most promising programs: Temple and Saint Louis. Plus, UNC-Charlotte and Massachusetts continue to dream of FBS, waiting for the right opportunity to leave for a newly founded FBS CAA or [gulp] maybe even the Big East. However, it is now also a time of newfound opportunity. First, several former C-USA schools still have legit FBS aspirations. All Eastern Carolina, Central Florida, and Marshall Need is a conference home for their FBS football programs and they could fulfill their FBS aspirations.

Well, it may take a few years and some planning, but it looks like we can accomplish that goal. However, until our ‘league on paper’ can become a reality, UCF, ECU and Marshall will have to park their football school in the independent section.

Outside of the former C-USA schools, Appalachian State is probably the closest thing our group has to a ‘sure bet’. Located in the mountains of western NC, the school has capitalized on recent publicity boosts and averaged 26,000 attendances per game in the 2008-09 seasons. The school has consistently been at the top of the attendance charts. However, the school’s raw numbers, the endowment, the stadium size (only 20k!), the student population and academic stature all fall below current 1-A standards. In an environment similar to modern Conference USA, and with a stadium expansion, the school should clear 30k easy.

Delaware is also fairly well off. The fighting Hens already average close to 20,000 per year, even facing inferior competition in Division 1-AA . Not only is Delaware a flagship university, it’s also rated in the top tier in USN&W report and is rated as a ‘very high research university’ by the Carnegie Classifications. The Hens are a university that bares a similar resume to University of Virginia or University of North Carolina; state flagship, large endowment, middling enrollment, except minus the sports program. The money, in the form of a one billion endowment, is there for Delaware. But will the fan base be willing to make sacrifices so the Fighting Hens can either A) build an entirely new stadium or B) expand their stadium by around 5-10k for football? As of right now, the Hens seem to be about 5 years away from minimum FBS requirements. Fortunately, the rest of the conference is at least 5 years out too.

Of the remaining schools, Georgia State has the best chance of making1-A attendance standards. They have hired a high profile coach in Bill Curry, play their football in the Georgia Dome, and [for better and for worse] play their football in the bustling metropolis that is Atlanta. While the endowment doesn’t exactly scream FBS, Georgia State more than makes up for it with its size. The school has almost a Directional Florida feel to it: Large market where they are 3rd team on the food chain, large student body, and small endowment.

UMASS will most likely not have the money to upgrade their stadium. However, renting a stadium (Gillette Stadium?) costs significantly less, and works well for several current BCS members (notably Pittsburgh and South Florida). UMASS’s credentials as a Division FBS school may at first seem underwhelming, however, the endowment is larger than that of Temple, who spends 1Million yearly to rent Lincoln Financial Field from the Philadelphia Eagles.

My plan is as follows: Do what Temple did occasionally during the 1970’s and strike a deal with an Ivy League school (possibly with some state pressure), in this case Harvard, and play the home games in Boston; thus drawing attention inside the state’s main population base. Harvard’s stadium holds 30k (Max 57k) [more than enough for FBS]. UMASS would directly appeal to the Boston area and save a wad of cash on stadium upgrades.

Harvard will receive 15% of the profits (and since this is a BCS-level league after all) so Harvard should pocket upwards of 1 million (which even for Harvard is a fair amount of money). As a bonus, Harvard will receive 1/3 of the money UMASS receives from NCAA tournament.

I imagine scheduling differences will surface, but can be worked around. Harvard has let pro teams rent out the stadium before, including the New England Patriots. Both the Boston Cannons of Major League Lacrosse and the Boston Breakers of Women’s Professional Soccer rent out the stadium currently. And I really doubt the Breakers and Cannons COMBINED are paying a million dollars for their stadium renting rights. Imagine this though: If UMASS becomes an A9 powerhouse and starts earning, say 16M instead of 8, then Harvard’s share becomes 2Million, or twice what Temple pays the Philadelphia Eagles to play in their state-of-the-art stadium. If Harvard declines, I would try a similar strategy with other Ivy league schools, such as Yale.

UNC-Charlotte is the wild card of the bunch. UNC-Charlotte is at least ten, if not more, years away from entering FBS play. UNC-Charlotte has a middling enrollment and endowment, but is a young and fast growing school with a very active alumni base. The football program seems to have developed a groundswell of support; UNC-Charlotte sold 5,000 PSLs in less than two months. UNC-Charlotte is the only school with legit FBS aspirations within the Charlotte (1.8 Million) metro area, but will face serious competition from several nearby schools, including ECU, Duke, Wake Forest, North Carolina, and NC State, not to mention the Carolina Panthers. Plus, the school will probably need to find a way to expand the stadium at the very least by 5,000 if they want to compete in FBS.

This leaves me at eight. I need about one more school to bring the conference up to nine, which will be enough for a stable football league. There are two schools left in the mid-Atlantic area that can legitimately think about FBS football: James Madison and Old Dominion. Old Dominion is bigger, in a larger market (Virginia Beach-Newport News), and has the larger endowment, while James Madison has a more established football tradition, in stark contrast to Old Dominion, and is expanding their stadium to 25k. JMU has experienced serious difficulties finding money for expansion. While ODU has literally no football track record, the raw materials are there for a FBS football. However, the stadium needs expansion from 20k to around 30k.

The ‘core’ of the Atlantic Nine (Central Fla, ECU, Marshall, Delaware, UMASS, Appalachian State) should be able to reach FBS standards within about five years. The other three teams (ODU, Georgia St, and UNC-Charlotte) will take several more years to their football teams up to FBS standards; One or two of the schools may also fall short along the way. This could very well remain a six-team league for a decade after reorganization.

The PlayoffsFirst, I have decided on a unique playoff system. The playoffs would be NFL-style, however with 11 teams instead of 12. Why 11? Because the bottom half of the bracket will be the rose bowl. Secondly, every FBS conference champion will receive an automatic berth to the playoffs. Wild-card matches will be played at the bowl site a week before the bowl. This way, the bowls can choose to give automatic berths to a certain conference. The Orange bowl would likely give berths to the Big East and ACC, the Sugar to the SEC and the Fiesta to the Big Twelve. The rose bowl will remain in Big Ten-Pac Ten format. The top three spots will all go to the top three conference champions; with undefeated teams receiving priority. Any Independent team going undefeated will also receive an automatic berth. Two teams that played each other during the regular season cannot be grouped in the same bowl.

The bowls will also be allowed to hand-pick the wild at large berths – there will be three -- required that they have at least ten wins and an avg. ESPN/Harris poll ranking of above fifteen. However, one of these at-large bids likely will be given to an Undefeated FCS team. Any FCS team that goes undefeated and untied will receive an automatic bid to the tournament. If two such FCS teams accomplish this feat, they will play each other for the right to participate. These FCS teams will not participate in the FCS playoffs. On the rare occasion that three FCS teams qualify, the highest ranked school will receive a first-round bye. To Qualify, the school must play at least ten FCS or FBS teams.

(A note here: FCS will be reduced to about 80 teams; so there won’t be any non-scholarship or partial-scholarship schools floating around. About half of FCS will be former FBS teams. Also, to compete at FCS, all teamsneed to have a minimum of 50 scholarships and 7,000 average attendance)

Division of Payouts will be as follows: For the Bowl Games, the payouts will be according to the Bowl’s wishes, as long as both participating teams retain an equal share and the payouts at least equal those given during pre-reorganization. For the wildcard games, 25% of the profits is redistributed, the remaining money is divided as the bowl committees see fit, required that A) each school receives an equal share and B) that share is no less than 3 million.

These Playoffs will not be an NCAA entitiy. More or Less, they will be run by the schools and the bowl commitees. They will be nun like a non-sanctioned NCAA basketball tournament, like the Maui Invitational, but the money will be redistributed like an NCAA tournament, so all schools get a peice of the pie. The money received by each school from bowl payouts would be divided as followed: 50% to the participating school, 30% divided among the participating conference in whatever way conference officials see fit, 20% divided equally among all FCS schools. The TV deal would be divided as follows: 25% would be redistributed among the host sites in a manner they see fit, and the other ¾ would be redistributed.

The playoffs would look a bit like this:

Nevermind, screw this. I'm showing you what the playoffs would look like:

simulations done at whatifsports.com; pictures from wikipediaThe Semifinals, Finals, and consolation game would rotate between:1) The new cowboys stadium in Dallas, Texas2) Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania3) The Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia4) California Memorial Stadium in San Francisco, California

The Wild Card Games would be held on Saturday and Sunday in the third weekend of December. The Bowl Games would be held Jan 1-5th as per their schedule, while the second round will be held on the second Saturday in January, and the finals on the third Saturday in January.

Hope you enjoyed.... I'll post part two in this same article... sometime say next month or something.

Last edited by thelurker on Sun Jan 25, 2009 1:22 am, edited 8 times in total.

I meant to address this in another part of the proposition, but somehow it got cut out..

Moving Up..

Any team which retains a 15,000 attendance and 85 full scholarships over four years, may look into moving up from FCS to FBS. Once the school does, it will enter an evaluation period, Over a four year period, it must average atleast 25,000 fans per game to fully transfer to FBS three of those four years. If six or more teams move up with the intention of forming a conference, these teams and that conference are exempt from the usual NCAA rules on moving up and the conference champion can compete in the FBS NCAA tournament immeadiatly.

The same rules apply for moving up from 1-AA to FCS. However, the attendance requirement is 7,000 and the scholarship requirement is 50.

As for moving down, every five years schools Division FBS will be reevaulated. Any school who falls under the 25,000 attendance mark AND fails to spend atleast 8 Million on football four years out of five will be demoted to FCS. They may choose to reupgrade anytime the schools wish. Plus, any FCS team that finishes undefeated will get atleast a shot at a berth in the FBS tournament... A similar situation exsists in 1-AA and 1-AAA.

Honestly, the schools you mentioned are either A) not very close to 1-A or B) fringe schools who occasional end up conference champions and/or beat mid-level BCS teams but lack the funding/size/support to seriously compete for a title in FBS. When was the last time a school not listed in the FBS group above finished in the top 10? top 15? If I remeber correctly, Miami (Ohio) did it once with Big Ben, but that's just about it. Then of course there's Tulane, but they would have qualified for a playoff berth. I rest my case...

Last edited by thelurker on Sun Jan 18, 2009 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The first four teams you listed are all included in the system (look under MWC). So, correctly, is Appalacian State (look under A9 football). See, the defining point here is not whether a conference is/is not BCS but whether the school has the fan support/alumni to compete at a certain level.

Tulsa is among the smallest private schools in the nation. They play in an uninspiring DMA where they are third on the food chain behind both the Sooners and Cowboys. While they have had recent success, historically the Golden Hurricane is under-inspiring (However, they played well in the old Missouri Valley)

Ball State has several things going for it: A) Famous Alumni B) A 220 Million Endowment and C) a fairly large alumni population. However, the school simply can't get over one hump: Being buried in a mid-sized town under such giants as the University of Indiana, University of Purdue, and of course, everybody's favorite golden domers. It's in a similar situation to alot of upper elchelon MAC schools (in fact, they remind me quite a bit of SUNY-Buffalo) where the fan support has just never been there to really compete with the big boys.

After all, any of these schools can still qualify for the Division FBS top 25 and the Division FBS playoffs if they finish the season undefeated. Which is the probably the only way they can qualify for the FBS playoffs (or BCS bowl, for that matter) in the first place. If Ball State had defeated Buffalo, they would've qualified. But because they didn't, they would've been ranked too low to grab an at large spot (Alot of college football playoff theroms don't give the MAC, Sun Belt, or post-raid WAC an autobid) It also opens up the FBS playoffs to any school that can meet FCS standards (Soon to be your beloved Jackrabbits and Bison).

Believe me, if I was Supreme Football Dictator, the first thing I'd do (after abolishing that injustice known only as the 'Rose' Bowl) is institude a 32 team playoff and include d*mn near everybody (most of FCS, Non-BCS, FBS) but due to the fact that most college football presidents A) have a hard-on for the bowl system and B) want to avoid stepping on the NFL toe's too much (my playoff goes into wild card weekend; is that too far?), we will never see that glourious day, the first one a legitimate national champion is crowned.

By the way, there are few people more anti-BCS on this board than me... Can those Oppresors!

First, you will notice some Division II schools plugging the gaps in the conference. This is because there are several (around 20, albiet mostly HBCUs) division II schools yearly who meet or come close to 7,000 attendance. Every school has had A) atleast one year with 7,000+ attendance and B) one other year with 5,000+ attendance in the past three. The exception is Valdosta State, but the school is well off enough to compete despite having two seasons of 5,000k+ attendace.

As I mentioned before, a team must have atleast 7,000 attendance per year to compete at the FCS level. They also must offer atleast 50 scholarships, and can offer up to 80.

One of the things you'll notice is perennial FCS powers, especially the Big Sky and the CAA, start to struggle with a regulated attendance and rampant shakeups and expansion and have to look below thier normal standards for new membership.

Hope you enjoy!

Football Championship Subdivision.

To start off, this isn’t the FCS you’re used to seeing. Unlike Division I there is no monetary requirement, however, all schools must play full [at least 50] scholarship football to continue competing in Football Championship Subdivision. Since the Ivy League, Pioneer football league and Patriot League, play non-scholarship football and the northeast conference plays restricted scholarships; the schools composing these leagues would be demoted to 1-AA. Schools would be offered two choices: expand to 50 scholarships or move down.

While the minimum number of scholarships is 50, schools in FCS can still give out as many as 85 scholarships. I would eliminate the scholarship difference because these schools would be on essentially the same level as FBS. If a team in FCS goes undefeated, untied, they would be allowed A) Placement in the FBS Top 25 polls and B) A spot in the FBS tournament. If two such FCS teams finish the season undefeated, they will play each other for the right to a berth in the FBS tournament.

FBS uses a 20-team tournament with 10 automatic berths. The tournament is sent up and profits are redistributed the same as in FBS.

I think while most of the schools you listed are close to 'FCS' level, they aren't quite there yet.

You see, FCS in my playoff theorum is close to today's non-BCS football leagues. Also, the judgements I'm using are based on which schools would be ready for a certain level of competition now, not 3-4 years in the future. (The exception to this rule is the Atlantic Nine). However, schools like Arkansas Tech should be ready for inclusion approx. 5-10 years from now. I'm probably already pushing it by adding Div II schools even if they have passed attendance requirements (though the sucess of NCCentral and Central Arkansas combat this theory). Many Division II schools lack the resources availible to compete on the 85 scholarship plane (I'm worried about Tuskegee and Miles especially).

I'll add atleast some of those schools in Part III, where I examine 1-AA, which is the lower half of real life FCS.

This is my redesigned 1-AA... Just to warn you, there are a couple of schools that don't sponsor football (but have the potential to excel) yet... These schools will play in the end of the season 20-game tournament similar to FCS, but are not able to compete in the FCS tournament... 1-AAA schools are in the 1-AA tournament, but by invitation only.

Secondly, let this be known: Any school who fails to meet 3000 requirement 3 out of 4 years will be dropped down to 1-AAA. (This works because the only schools to do this were NEC schools and non-scholarship schools)

1-AA schools are A) required to have atleast 40 scholarships and B)required to have atleast 3000 attendance two times over a three year period.

This last one’s a little bit of a hodgepodge between a couple of the more desperate western schools. It’ll become more defined as soon as the three unknowns –Metro State, Alaska-Anchorage, and Alaska Fairbanks (yes, I’m being a little bit of a dreamer here, there really are a lack of high level division II schools out west….) add football. All three of these schools have the alumni/funds to compete not only at 1-AA, but eventually FCS.

Note: Here, Division 1-AAA works alot like Division II or III except that there is no required amount of scholarships; however, no school may give out more than 20 whilst participating in Division 1-AAA.

I've tried a nonconventional route to try to spice up what would otherwise be a very bland subsection of Division I. I have decided to target the academic elites, one of the few schools who might choose a non-scholarship route- for inclusion in Division 1-AAA. Truth be told, some of my reccomendations may seem a little rediculous, but a 'club' level football experience would prove beneficial to several of these schools.

Hope you enjoy!

Western Association of Academically Inclined Universities:University of San Diego$Academy of Art University (Calif.)$Oklahoma City University$Colorado College$Trinity College$Hawaii Pacific$Chaminade$Grand Canyon University$

The Northeast Academia Football League:John Hopkins University$Yeshiva University$Queens College$Massachusetts Institute of Technology$Rutgers-Newark$Rutgers-Camden$State University of New York-Binghamton

$ = All other sports would continue to compete at Division II/III. Division I football maintained by these schools would be similar in style to ‘club’ football, and therefore, being non-scholarship, would not count towards the amount of sports each school is allowed in Division I. I-AAA has more in common with Division II or Division III than Division I, and is classified as so. However, these schools retain full rights as Division I members, including the right to a 1-AA playoff berth by invitation and a 1-AAA playoff berth by qualification.

A quick note – give these universities a five year grace period to develop their programs before tearing into them… My goal here is to find atmospheres which are conducive to the structure of non-scholarship football… i.e. Universities which A)wouldn’t mind losing the scholarships and B)lack the support for a bigger scale program (ala Rice).

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